Where your District property tax dollar goes, and which part the District controls

Every spring the District of North Vancouver mails a tax newsletter with the bill. The 2026 edition says council approved a municipal tax increase of 3.53% for the year: 2.03% for services and a further 1.5% set aside for the infrastructure deficit — the gap between what the District's roads, pipes and buildings need and what has been budgeted to maintain them.

The same newsletter says that roughly 45% of a District property tax bill is collected on behalf of other bodies — the Province for schools, Metro Vancouver, TransLink, BC Assessment and the Municipal Finance Authority — and that the District has no control over those charges or how they are distributed. The remaining 55% pays for District services: fire and rescue, the District's share of policing, roads, parks, recreation, planning and administration.

That split is the honest starting point for any conversation about taxes. A candidate who promises to cut your bill by a third is promising to cut something the District does not collect. What a mayor and council do decide, every year in the five-year financial plan, is the District's own 55%: what it funds, what it defers, and how clearly it is explained.

Max's commitment is to that last part. Review the District's spending line by line, publish a budget a household can read, prioritise the essential services, and explain every increase in plain language before it is approved — including the infrastructure deficit, which does not go away by being left out of the conversation.

Property taxes for 2026 were due on July 2. The newsletter and the full 2026–2030 financial plan are linked below.